Ignite Girls Tufaulu

The main contextual issues affecting quality education and leaking career progression in STEM for girls in marginalized communities include; persisting institutional, gender and cultural stereotypes, low literacy and numeracy skills among girls, lack of relevant job market skills thus leading  to challenges in employability and experiences  in low digital literacy levels due to lack of structured creative computing education and coding in schools.

Ignite Girls Tufaulu (Ignite Girls to Success) program adopts a learner centered and hands-on learning approach incorporating a mix of emerging technologies(robotics, creative coding), building teachers capacity in STEM through technology, conducting STEM mentorship and outreach, participation in tinkering and innovation fairs.

At scale, real world learning application equips lifelong learning including computational thinking; change in STEM attitudes, exposure to workplace skills career interest in STEM. 

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education aims to nurture students to become effective lifelong learners to strengthen their ability to integrate and apply knowledge and skills in real life challenges in the 21st Century. Most girls in Kenya perform poorly in maths and science subjects and are heavily underrepresented in STEM related courses at tertiary levels. Serious under-representation of girls in STEM is evident in low resources areas including: informal settlements, rural areas and Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL). Due to patriarchal nature of these communities,  girls’ roles are clearly defined as being caregivers with little acknowledgement of their mental capabilities.

According to UNESCO,  only 35% of STEM students globally are women in tertiary institutions, hence the need to integrate gender responsiveness in STEM education (NCST, 2010). Women are more than half the Kenyan population, however persisting institutional, gender and cultural stereotypes contribute significantly to poor (less than 20%) girl’s participation in STEM related fields  (Global Partnership for Education, 2019). These barriers contribute to; lack of interest and negative attitude in STEM and career progression, gender barriers due to lack of role models, inadequate STEM mentorship programmes in STEM  (Awuor, 2013).

Ignite Girls Tufaulu is a unique  STEM learning program targeting learners and teachers from low resourced community schools. The program  Incorporates a mix of emerging technologies such as, creative coding platforms such as Scratch where children have an opportunity to create their own stories, games and animations with the support of an online community; robotics, including the design, construction, programming and operation of robots to carry out automated tasks, within a system of play that allows them to work collaboratively to build robots to solve complex problems, or within progressive interventions that introduce the learners  to the principals of robotics and mechanics though local materials and mobile app development with MIT App Inventor.

Our curriculum lays a strong foundation to expose teachers and learners in emerging and disruptive technologies, enhance teachers capacity development to incorporate tech in curricula, supporting learners to participate in innovation fairs and competitions such as Kenya Science Engineering Fair, FLL, WRO,  hackathons etc and conducting STEM outreach through the country.

Focusing on the development of 21st century skills in students through real life academically challenging open ended challenges targeting to cultivate essential STEM and 21st century skills using technologies including; LEGO EV3, spike,Arduino, Makey Makey Scratch.

Ignite Girls Tufalu has a strong emphasis on girls and students from low income and marginalized communities who are often being left behind in terms of educational achievements and career aspirations, due to institutional, gender and cultural barriers. The girls will be drawn from the most 'left behind' regions which are the ASAL areas and the informal settlements in the 3 biggest cities-Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. A total of 1000 girls will be targeted directly.   

Compared to urban and high end schools with the increase in disruptive technologies such as robots and artificial intelligence, more marginalized girls are the  most affected in accessing quality  STEM education. Ignite Girls Tufaulu program will engage to mentor girls from these communities by allowing them to explore, learn and solve critical problems affecting their everyday lives, increasing the interest of girl in STEM related subjects and careers. We will also  establish an ecosystem of girl STEM mentors form nearby tertiary institutions pursuing STEM courses and acquiring the necessary STEM skills and knowledge to contribute to solving real life problems in the 21 century. 

Through innovation fairs girls from different backgrounds and communities will showcase, learn form one another and compete to solve different challenges.  

Ignite Girls Tufaulu, program is meant  to encourage young girls from marginalized communities to pursue  STEM related pathways in school and career choice. Our program integrates the use of emerging technologies in learning to engage girls from marginalized communities by allowing them to explore, learn and solve critical problems affecting their everyday lives  and increasing their interest  in STEM related subjects and careers.  The project also seeks to enhance girls potential to gain STEM skills competencies relevant in the ever changing job market  to become problem solvers, innovators, and leading figures in STEM careers.

Ignite Girls Tufaulu provides for a curriculum for students with low computer literacy, with the end goal of having participants make basic programs, activities and feel comfortable to continue their STEM, coding and robotics education by accessing our curriculum and resources.

 We provide an integrated pedagogy learning, including; active learning, collaborative and cooperative learning, experiential learning, guided discovery learning, inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, and project-based learning which positively affect student learning across social, emotional, physical, creative, and cognitive domains.

Our approach is Innovative as we seek  to link learning to the industry by incorporating a mix of globally innovative technology solutions to power lifelong learning by  combining activities like  tinkering, creative coding and robotics in classrooms. We are uniquely placed because we are recognized by the government, have run the first ever national robotics program with the national government, introducing the robotics program, which many thought it was impossible. 

Our approach is also Aligned with the new competence based curriculum and adds value to it by  emphasizing  critical thinking and problem solving, self-efficacy, learning to learn, communication and collaboration, citizenship, digital literacy, creativity and imagination. The regions we are targeting have not received much attention when it comes to such programs, and by targeting such populations, we will be starting with those that are left 'behind the most.'  

The Ignite Girls Tufaulu curriculum infuses a mix of technology learning solutions (hardware and software); including an introductory to creative coding and tinkering using the Scratch programming language. Creative Coding will introduce girls to the fundamental concepts of object oriented programming, using code as a method for self-expression in a variety of media, such as 2D graphics, animation, image, and video processing. 

Using the MIT app Inventor platform girls are supported to build fully functional apps for their smartphones and tablets. Blocks-based coding programs inspire intellectual and creative empowerment to be change drivers in their communities.

We engage learners in hands-on, cross-curricular STEM Robotics solution by providing the resources to design, build and program their creations while helping them develop essential skills such as creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication. Students and teachers can leverage the advanced features and functionality of robotics along with the STEM, robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) lessons to build job specific skills with focus on Computer Science, Engineering and specific areas of Cvocational education such as Manufacturing, Information Technology and Pre-Engineering.

Our program for girls leverages on technology to ignite STEM learning to enable girls to understand our world better, to learn in an integrated stem education in innovative ways, to learn computational thinking, to become comfortable with iteration and learn from failure and finally to be exposed to and learn about the jobs of the future

Our organization PlayPoint Education partnered  with the Ministry of Education through  Centre of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA) to introduce  creative coding and robotics science in over 240 public  secondary schools to promote STEM education and inspire  young learners to develop core competency and 21st Century skills such as critical thinking, complex problem solving, creativity, and imaginations among others in line with the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC). Through assembly and coding of various robot models using the LEGO Education EV3 robotics kits, students have had the opportunity to not only acquire technological skills but also social (collaboration, communication, citizenship, perseverance etc.) skills. We have further built the capacity of teachers in in robotics science and developed  a STEM robotics training manuals on how to use the robotic kits for teaching and learning and achieving the core competencies proposed in the new competence-based curriculum (CBC). Working with the Kenya Science and Engineering Fair (KSEF), CEMASTEA, and the Ministry of Education, we successful organized the first ever National Robotic Competition 2019 where over 1200 students participated. The Second National Robotics Competition 2020 was launched in February 2020 however due to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic; this has not happened. 

We have further continued to provide opportunities for our learners to showcase their acumen ship in international coding and robotics competitions through a partnership with World Robot Olympiad Association. 

We believe that secondary education is central to achieving our countries vision 2030,  Africa’s Vision 2063 and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Investments to improve education and to stimulate employment will allow this generation of youth to play a pivotal role in realizing the vision of economic transformation laid out in the country's development blue print and also in the  African Union’s Agenda 2063 — a vision of inclusive
growth driven by investments in human capital, science, technology,
and innovation. Accessible, quality, and relevant secondary education also
contributes to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. Targeting this set of population is therefore strategic because secondary education is  a key platform for young people in Africa to enter the world of work. Missing this opportunity, especially in empowering girls in STEM will mean that a huge population, who are already marginalised, and left behind the most, will mean that they will not participate effectively in the economy, and will not transition to STEM related careers in future.  We would therefore like to contribute towards  a girls STEM literate society that excels in STEM education, transitions to STEM careers in future and participate fully in the economy. We shall do this by targeting the girls in ASAL regions, and those in informal settlements by taking them through  creative computing programs like coding and robotics where they will not only learn in a fun way but also acquire the much needed 21st century skills.

By using mentors, exposing the girls to STEM fairs and competitions, working closely with the teachers and the school ecosystem, we believe that we will create the required support to support the marginalized girls increase their interest in STEM, increase their enrollment in STEM subjects and eventually their transition to he market place where they shall earn dignified incomes. 

Since incorporation in 2017, we have introduced creative coding and robotics in over 250 secondary schools in Kenya. Through a partnership with Ministry of Education, NGOS and philanthropists we have trained over 3500 students in Scratch coding and robotics.  In the next 1 year we anticipate to reach another 1000 students following the incorporation of our robotics competition in the Kenya Science and Engineering Fair Kenya and introduction of World Robot Olympiad increasing the number of students reached to 7441 students in 5 years. 

We anticipate our interventions will lead to an increased  uptake of STEM  by 10% among girls annually with the following key outcomes: (i) Improved attitude towards STEM among first 1000 students; (ii) Strengthened schools’ system to support STEM adoption in partner schools  and (iii)  Increased exposure to STEM careers opportunities . 

Within next year and five years we are targeting the following impact goals;

1. Strengthen our partnership with MOE Kenya and other institutions train more teachers, collaborate in curriculum development, reach more schools and students through our coding and robotics programs in Kenya,
2. Strengthen organization capacity to grow our impact to more learners and regions throughout Kenya, including hiring more staff and volunteers and focus of professional development in STEM, curriculum development and relevant capacity. 
3. Collaborate with research institutions to strengthen our data portfolio. 
4. Scale up base to at least two regional bases including Mombasa and Kisumu cities and expand to at least two East Africa countries.
5. Focus to enhance a STEM Mentor Ecosystem targeting STEM students in tertiary institutions and development partners to strengthen our outreach activities throughout the country. 
6. Develop a Web based and a radio  server broadcasting learning portal for students and teachers to access our curriculum. 
7. Collaborate with like minded institutions to develop a STEM activities simulation app especially in low resourced schools that lack adequate learning labs.
8. Incorporate IoT, AI and machine learning to our curriculum. 

Our greatest barrier has been obtaining funding to run our programs especially in low resourced areas and other marginalized communities. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has limited our work majorly due to shut down of schools and other measure to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus.  

Cultural barriers and attitudes such as early marriages, early pregnancies leading to student drop outs will be a contributing factor to our programs. 

Weak research component in our team which has been a barrier to track down our full impact per teacher or student trained. 

Partnering and collaborating with international and national organization grant making organizations to fund impact activities.

Lobbying education stakeholders to adopt innovative education tech solutions in basic education framework. 

Enhancing our partnership with MOE Kenya and other institutions train more teachers, collaborate in curriculum development, reach more schools and students through our coding and robotics programs in Kenya,

Enhancing organization capacity to grow our impact to more learners and regions throughout Kenya, including hiring more staff and volunteers and focus of professional development in STEM, curriculum development and relevant capacity. 

Collaborate with national research institutions to strengthen our research and data portfolio. 

Community liaison especially to carry out our programs in collaboration with STEM students in universities and tertiary institutions to ensure cultural barriers are broken down. 

Collaborate with community based organization to sensitize the community about girls education especially in STEM.

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Full-time staff 4 with 7 university and graduate volunteers as part time 

We have had over 3 years experience in promoting creative coding and robotics in Kenya. Through our partnership with the MOE Kenya we have spread our reach to every county in Kenya with at least 2 school in each county.  We are also recognized by the government in providing emerging technology solutions in STEM schools. 

We have worked closely with MOE Kenya to build teachers capacity in creative coding and robotics since 2018.  In 2019 we developed the first national robotics competition which has now been adopted by the MOE Kenya as a category for students to partake in the Kenya Science Engineering Fair. We have further collaborate with World robot Olympiad Association to introduce the international competition in Kenya. 

We have an experienced team who have ensured continued service delivery in all these regions and curriculum and competition development for Kenya students.

Since our formation we have had a unique partnership with LEGO Education especially access to training and their classroom solutions. Other partner organizations include; Ministry of Education Kenya,World Robot Olympiad, Association. Kenya Private Schools Association

We have attracted international recognition and grant funding from The Lemelson Foundation who funded our program in 5 schools targeting 40 teachers in Dagoretti area one of the low income areas. Kenya Tea Development Foundation has funded our program to 35 secondary schools starting 2020 for both teachers and students. 

Center for Mathematics Science Technology Education in Africa,an agency of the MOE Kenya mandated to carry out in service teacher professional development we have collaborated STEM Model school pilot program to train teachers and provided robotics equipment throughout Kenya. 

Kenya Science Engineering Fair the premier body of MOE in-charge of science fair in Kenya. we have collaborated to introduce the first robotics competition and judges training in Kenya since 2019 up to date. 

Kenya Tea Development Agency Foundation, who are funding upto 35 schools in creative coding and STEM robotics in rural tea growing areas

World Robotics Olympiad Association backed up by the LEGO Foundation who we are collaborating to introduce WRO competition for all students in Kenya

Tech Harbor Education,who are are collaborating to create an e-learning platform and program for our curriculum to be accessible via the internet and offline via apps. 

We offer a service subsidization model of operation whereby our programs are structured for schools and other institutions pay a nominal fee for our teacher training in creative coding and robotics, and school`s pay a subscription fee for their team to participate in our robotics competitions. 

Our main priority is to impact as many students as possible through the teachers training through our curricula and competitions. The funds generated helps us expand and reach more schools teachers and students with our program. 

We have also established a partnership with one of the leading banks in the country to offer loans to schools to purchase robotic kits and other STEM materials to schools.

On a larger scale, we are shifting our model to be household based, like in other regions in Europe by bringing parents and caregivers on board to appreciate our programs, and invest in them for their children. In this COVID-19 period, we have had the highest number of inquiries for our products. 

Our primary financing approach is to sell our service to schools and institutions for every teacher trained, raising fees through participation in our competitions and hackthons and through sale of physical computing equipment to schools such as robotics hardware. Funds generate are used to run our operations and outreach activities throughout the country. 

The long run is when we bring the parents and caregivers on board, to have a lego kit in every household in the country. In the current curriculum, coding has been introduced from Grade 5, with a strong STEM pathway in senior secondary school. We believe this approach will lead to the appreciation and ownership by the parents, so that they can support their children.

We are also working with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development to categorise our products and solutions in the official 'Orange' book- where all approved learning materials are listed, where all schools purchase from.

With a proof of concept and as we scale our products and service we have positioned ourselves to collaborate and partner various grant funding and donation organizations to finance our education impact projects.  

Our application aims collaborate with SOLVE global network to showcase our work, learn and possible collaborate with potential partners in enhancing girls in STEM and digital literacy through strengthening core competencies, particularly in STEM and digital literacy, for girls and young women to effectively transition from education to meaningful employment across East Africa.

We are an upcoming startup in Kenya with a  vision to expand our programs to the  East Africa region. However we cannot do this without support from experienced organizations and individuals in the field. We are seeking to incorporate an advisory board to guide us in scale through revision of our business model, funding  and revenue model to finance our programs, achieve scale with efficiency and greater impact. 

Since technology is fast evolving, we are seeking partners in with disruptive and relevant solution technology for education to enhance our impact and achieve efficiency. Furthermore a team that will complement our monitoring and evaluation portfolio to effective and efficient data and research collection, analysis and presentation in our programs. 

We aim to enhancing our marketing,media and exposure nationally and globally to share our impact and students transition in our programs, influence education technology policy development in East Africa, and attract funding. 

MIT Media Lab, The Elevate Price Foundation,The Gulbenkian Foundation Award, General Motors, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Vodafone Americas Foundation, Andan Foundation, and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court.The Lemelson Foundation, Discovery Education, Gates Foundation, Boeing company, LEGO Foundation, Chandaria Foundation, Safaricom Foundation, Kenya National Innovation Agency, National Research Fund Kenya, National Commission for Nomadic Education in Kenya, UNICEF Education, Century Tech, MakerED 

Refugees form part of the marginalized communities who face challenging barriers especially access to meaningful education, students and youth form refugee communities  often have negative learner attitude towards STEM subjects, a weak schools’ systems to support adoption of STEM, and low students’ interaction with STEM related Mentors and careers opportunities. Kenya is a host to refugees and in the target counties, there are refugee camps there who will also benefit from our program. Ignite Girls Tufaulu program would like to  breaking these barriers and encourage young girls from both the host communities and  the  refugee camps   to be interested in STEM, enroll in STEM related courses and eventually transition to STEM related careers though our program activities. 

Our organization will collaborate with refugee community organizations to set up creative coding and robotics learning programs targeting refugee communities in Kenya. With a strong focus on development of appropriate and valuable career skills but also encourages them to become social innovator in their communities and equipping the with industry skills such as mobile app and website development to fill in the digital gap in the market.

Ignite Girls Tufaulu prioritizes on girls education to enhancing girls potential from low resourced communities in STEM skills and competencies through education technology initiatives. Worldwide girls participation in STEM are  very low as depicted in the enrolment, retention and transition to STEM related courses and eventually careers. There are both systemic and cultural issues that promote this status quo. Ignite Girls Tufaulu, program is meant to start breaking these barriers and encourage young girls from marginalized communities to  be interested in STEM, enroll in STEM related courses and eventually transition to STEM related careers.

Through the Innovation for Women Prize will enable us to mentor at least 1000 girls annually in STEM through technology such as creative coding IoT and robotics program. Therefore it is anticipated that this will lead to an increased  uptake of STEM  by 10% among 1000 learners by December 31, 2022 with the following key outcomes: (i) Improved attitude towards STEM among 1000 students; (ii) Strengthened schools’ system to support STEM adoption in 20 schools  and (iii)  Increased exposure to STEM careers opportunities among 1,000 students for experiential learning and inspiration.

Ignite Girls Tufaulu prioritizes on girls education to enhancing girls potential from low resourced communities in STEM skills and competencies through education technology initiatives. Worldwide girls participation in STEM is very low as depicted in the enrollment, retention and transition to STEM related courses and eventually careers. There are both systemic and cultural issues that promote this status quo. Ignite Girls Tufaulu, program is meant to start breaking these barriers and encourage young girls from marginalized communities to  be interested in STEM, enroll in STEM related courses and eventually transition to STEM related careers.

Through The GM Prize on Learning for Girls and Women will enable us to mentor at least 1000 girls annually in STEM through technology such as creative coding IoT and robotics program. Therefore it is anticipated that this will lead to an increased  uptake of STEM  by 10% among 1000 learners by December 31, 2022 with the following key outcomes: (i) Improved attitude towards STEM among 1000 students; (ii) Strengthened schools’ system to support STEM adoption in 20 schools  and (iii)  Increased exposure to STEM careers opportunities among 1,000 students for experiential learning and inspiration. 

Ignite Girls Tufaulu strongly advocates for capacity building of teachers to enhance their abilities to support students in creative coding, IoT and robotics. Teachers from the backbone of this program for sustainability and student support. 

A majority of teachers have inadequate know-how to use technology to advance literacy literacy especially in math and digital arts. Through our program we ensure teachers are adequately trained in creative coding to create stories, animations and games as well as using technology such as robotics. Therefore enhancing teachers capacity in digital literacy and STEM

In the world today AI has been playing an increasingly prominent role in our world including; Intelligent assistants, self-driving cars and autonomous robots in the workplace.,

Our AI focused curriculum will help students understand and create mental models of what happens in the background of AI based applications. Encourage students to build their own AI applications and explore case studies of AI-related societal issues from multiple perspectives.